Friday, May 25, 2007

Moving and humbling occasion

The funeral of Sally Hannon today was very moving and humbling. The service was beautiful, put together with great style by Sally's family and the clergy led by Father Bernard Dagnall.

There were so many highlights. Joan Baez singing "Forever Young" was one. The Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police (a very impressive lady) read the lesson from Isaiah. We sang "Jerusalem" and "I, the Lord of Sea and Sky". Leighton Andrews AM read from the Letter of St James. Father Bernard spoke of "comfort" in the old (prodding people into action) sense of the word and the new sense of the word, both qualities which Sally had.

The church was well full and many stayed for refreshments afterwards.

As usual, of course, for a life-long Liberal as Sally was, we had the singing of "The Land". As was observed by one blogger at a recent funeral elsewhere, this is always good for a laugh. The congregation was remarkably cross-party and one always enjoys seeing them "pulled along" into singing "The Land".

1 comment:

I'm pleased that Paul has published this blog as it enables my wife and I to say how proud we are of our daughter.She had a strong sense of public duty and strove to help others who were less fortunate than her.The service incidentally was the work of our son in law and two granddaughters, Eilis and Holly.